Roky's Road

I heard it all, musically, as a 'tween in the Sixties, in the inner sanctum of my brother's room. And while Mark allowed me my own forays into weirdness — I was obsessed with the Who's "Happy Jack" — I allowed him some, too, including his fixation on that most seminal of all seminal psychedelic garage-rock bands, the 13th Floor Elevators, whose percussive electric-jug volleys in their one hit, "You're Gonna Miss Me," took a back seat only to the barely screwed-on Texas-wildman vocals of the legendary Roky Erickson.

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More About

• Roky Erickson
• Tivoli
• Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane

Segue to the 21st century: In the new documentary You're Gonna Miss Me, the same Erickson is seen toothless and fat, with a tuft of matted hair, staring into space in a room where everything that can be turned on is. The story of how Erickson ended up in such a state (I won't give it all away, but it involves lots of drugs and three years at the Rusk State Hospital for the Criminally Insane), as well as how he's begun to overcome it, opens today at Starz FilmCenter in the Tivoli. For tickets and showtimes, call 303-820-3456 or visit www.denverfilm.org.